Roman Charity

The old man chained at the wall is Cimon, a Roman condemned to die in prison of hunger. The young woman leaning to his chest is his daughter Pero, who has recently given birth, and she is feeding him from her own breast so the sentence cannot be carried out. Antiquity told this as a model of devotion to a parent, and around 1615 Manfredi paints it with nothing softened, the two bodies pressed close in a narrow cell while a single light falls on her shoulder and his ribs. Painters of his day were drawn to the story because it let them show tenderness and shame in one gesture. Later it was counted among images of the works of mercy, the acts of care a Christian was expected to give the suffering.